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You can judge a man by the quality of his enemies, wrote author Oscar Wilde.

On that basis, state Senate President Joe Negron is standing 10 feet tall right about now.

Throughout the fall, as Negron talked about the need to buy land south of Lake Okeechobee to curb the discharges that wreaked such havoc on the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries, there always was a chance that his words were mere campaign promises. Perhaps he simply was saying what constituents wanted to hear, and never really planned on expending the political capital necessary to take on the powerful interests sure to oppose any land buy: the sugar industry, farmers south of the lake, even other legislators dubious of spending billions on projects that might not help their own constituencies.

Now we know Negron was serious.

And the real battle has begun.

Late last month Sen. Rob Bradley, chairman of the Senate Environmental and Natural Resources Appropriations Committee, introduced his bill to advance Negron's proposal, a $2.4 billion plan to buy 60,000 acres for water storage south of the lake.

Those powerful interests are lined up to strangle the proposal in its infancy. South Florida Water Management District officials said there's no need for more land south of the lake. Sugar farmers have unleashed an army of lobbyists to kneecap the proposal. Senate Bill 10 is "not supported by the science" and is the "most expensive and least effective idea," U.S. Sugar spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said.

And even if the bill sailed unmolested through the Senate, there still is the matter of the Florida House, where Speaker Richard Corcoran has said that, despite his support for efforts to clean state waters, Florida has a "spending problem" — and the House is not prepared to bond tax money to buy land.

But it remains vital. Water storage south of Lake Okeechobee is a key component to solving the long-term problem of discharges and the toxic algae carried in the flow.

Senate Bill 10 is a win for the Treasure Coast and far beyond. We wholeheartedly endorse the measure, and hope to see Negron, Bradley and other backers fight hard to push it through the Legislature.

Buy Photo

State Sen. Joe Negron speaks during the Protest Lake O Discharge event hosted by the Rivers Coalition and the River Kidz at the St. Lucie Lock and Dam on Oct. 25, 2012, in Stuart.(Photo: HOBIE HILER/SPECIAL TO TCPALM)

There certainly will be quite a bit of horse trading involved. House budget chairman Carlos Trujillo, a Miami Republican, has said Negron could find allies in the House if he gives members some of their priorities, like health care and education reform.

The animosity could be driven, in part, by a provision in the bill that would give state water officials until Dec. 31 to find landowners willing to sell the necessary acreage. If they can't, the state would force U.S. Sugar to live up to a 2010 agreement which gave the state an option to buy 153,000 acres south of the lake.

We fail to see anything improper in the state demanding that the company honor its agreement, if it comes to that. Nor is there anything improper about the state honoring Amendment 1, which 75 percent of voters approved in 2014, and which specifically allows issuing bonds for this purpose.

And — hint, hint — it need not come to that if U.S. Sugar and other agricultural interests come to the negotiating table before then.

The interests aligned against the land-buy proposal say they're for cleaner water, but mostly they appear to favor the status quo. Yes, when pressed, they'll acknowledge that something should be done. Storing water north of the lake, we're told, can be as effective as storage to the south. And what about those septic tanks contributing to the algal blooms?

To be sure, additional storage to the north, east and west are critical components of any long-term fix, as is the conversion of septic systems to sewer.

But there's a broad scientific consensus that significant amounts of storage south of Lake Okeechobee is crucial. That critics now attack this consensus as "fake science" gives us an idea of where their loyalties lie. In their feigned concern for the Treasure Coast, they would consign us to more summers of green waves, closed beaches, shuttered businesses and indeterminate health issues.

Enough. Our region has suffered too much for too long. The Legislature has a historic opportunity to remedy this decades-old problem. It's a fix citizens want and environmentalists and scientists say we need.

Negron has done the right thing in making this a priority. Here's hoping the rest of the Legislature will do the same.

Editorials of Treasure Coast Newspapers/TCPalm are decided collectively by its Editorial Board. To respond to this editorial in a letter to the editor, email up to 300 words to TCNLetters@TCPalm.com.